Some would say that the given time frame is truly a long stretch from today. However, the big threat that the phenomena might cause makes the study worth considering as it will have direct effect to future humanity.

There's a 90 percent chance that a nearby star will be approaching Earth within the next half million years. Known as Hipparcos 85605, the stellar dwarf is currently 16 light years away from us, and it could come as close as 0.13 light years away.

In the Giraffe constellation 13,000 light-years away, MY Camelopardalis is a massive binary system made up of two blue (that is, very hot and very bright) stars. They're so close, they're about to merge into a supermassive star.

Stars and planets are regarded as existing nicely within galaxies. We know that every now and again there are events that fling a star outside of the galaxy, doomed to wander the universe alone, but it was previously assumed to be relatively rare.

Last month, the American Astronomical Society's 223rd meeting featured the announcement of a few breakthroughs: Using the Kepler space observatory, researchers had discovered a planet roughly the mass of Earth orbiting a star beyond our solar system.

Australian astronomers have found the oldest known star in the universe, a discovery that may help to resolve a long-standing discrepancy between observations and predictions of the Big Bang billions of years ago.

New observations by a powerful telescope in Chile have revealed clues into why some galaxies experience a frenetic period of rapid star birth, only to see those stellar newborns starve future generations of stars.